From the Ashes
by Democratus
Summary: Tyrion finds Jaime alive, but trapped beneath the ruins of the Red Keep. Basically, I had to cope with the absolute tragedy that was the most recent episode somehow, and this is the result. It's sort of stupid and sort of poorly written, but I don't care. That puts it about on par with this season of the show.
1. Chapter 1

**So, I watched Episode 5 of Season 8 and I felt the need to write this. It's probably not very good but I don't care; this story is almost a coping mechanism for me. Maybe it will do that for you too, I don't know. All I know is that Jaime didn't deserve the end that he got. **

**I'll be updating this as often as possible, and I'm not sure how long it will be. My guess is maybe 6 chapters, but who knows? All the characters in here belong to George Martin, of course. Anyway, without further ado:**

From the Ashes

Tyrion, from his position at the foot of the Red Keep, could hear the gleeful screaming of the Dothraki as they pillaged the houses that had not been reduced to cinders and ash in King's Landing. They would be done soon, by his reckoning; there were not many homes that had not been burnt. Not for the first time that day, a bitter taste flooded into his mouth from the depths of his guilty throat. It was the taste of the smoke from men, women, children burning. Innocents burning. Friends burning.

_You were right, old friend. I should have listened when I had the chance. You were right and I betrayed you anyway._

There was precious little left of the Red Keep but a heap of rubble and some foundations, Tyrion noted as he trudged up the path to the place where Jaime and Cersei had left the Keep from. They had gotten out, after all; he was only here to make sure of it. At least, that was what he told himself. Some part of him, deep down in the dark crevices of his ugly, guilty head, he knew what he was about to find. That did not make it any less painful.

The corpse of Euron Crow's Eye was living up to its name. Though the rot had not yet set in, the crows and ravens had not felt the need to wait, it seemed. They were pecking at the pirate's face, squawking in delight and satisfaction at such a tasty meal. Euron's eyes were already pecked out.

Tyrion hardly noticed. A bloody dagger lay near Euron's hands, and a trail of blood led up the stairs to the Red Keep. Tyrion didn't notice that either, not yet.

His eyes were fixed firmly on the boat. The boat that should not have been there. A sinking sort of feeling was tearing its way through his chest, burning his guilty soul as it went until there was nothing left but ash and regret.

_He is dead. He's gone._

_I'm the last one left. Are you watching, Father? I'm all there is. I'm your legacy now._

After staring at the boat for what felt like years, Tyrion averted his guilty eyes. He looked down. He saw Euron's dagger first. Then the blood. Red, the color he had grown up surrounded by. Pure Lannister red. Try as he might, Tyrion found he could not look away. The blood led towards the entrance to the keep. It had collapsed, much like the rest of the Red Keep. It had been so tall, so magnificent, once. The Breaker of Chains had broken the Red Keep, and the Seven Kingdoms with it.

_She told me she would break the wheel, once. Perhaps this is what she meant._

As he stood there, Tyrion reflected that all his life men had called him a Half-Man. For the first time, he felt like one.

Tyrion did not remember making his way into the ruins of the Red Keep itself. He did not remember picking his way through the rubble to find the room where the dragon skulls had been. Of course, there were no dragon skulls now. There was nothing but dust, stone, and debris.

And something that was reflecting the day's dim light into Tyrion's eyes. He barely even noticed it at first; what was a little light compared to the crushing weight on his mind? But whatever it was did not flicker, or dim. It clung to the light, as if in desperation. Finally, he turned to look at the source of the disturbance. A pile of rubble. The doorway to the collapsed tunnel that led out to the sea.

A golden hand protruding from the heap of stone and debris.

Tyrion scrambled over the wreckage in his way with all the speed and agility of an acrobat. A larger man probably would have failed. Tyrion was many things. He was miserable. He was bitter. He was guilty. He was angry. He was not large, though. Tyrion reached the hand, fell to his knees, and grasped it. His mouth opened, he began to weep, but was rudely interrupted by a somewhat muffled hiss of pain, followed by a wonderfully familiar voice.

"If you want to kill me, just leave me here to die in peace, you son of a whore."

Tyrion was numb for a moment. His emotional faculties had been stretched thin that day; first Varys burned, then King's Landing burned, then he had thought his last remaining family had been crushed. All that stress, combined with this new blow, finally broke the Imp's resolve.

He struggled through his tears and his brother's pained curses to speak to the only person who had ever truly cared about him left alive.

"Is that any way to speak about our mother?"

The snarling and cursing from beneath the rubble abated, if only for a moment. Jaime was clearly in a great deal of pain, even if it appeared that the tunnel entrance had sheltered him from most of the collapsing rocks. He stumbled on his words, wheezing as if it was difficult to get them all. Tyrion supposed that if a castle had fallen on top of him, he probably would not be in much of a state to talk either..

"Leave, Tyrion. It's over. Go back to your dragon Queen." There was a pause, and a grunt. "I'm dying. I'm trapped. Leave me here to die alongside the woman I loved."

Tyrion opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off again as his brother kept talking.

"I killed her, Tyrion. I strangled her to death so she would suffer no more. She would have died slowly if I hadn't, stones shattered her spine and legs. Shattered her child. _Our _child. My last child."

Tyrion had no more tears to cry with. He clambered to his feet, and reassured his brother.

"I'll come back soon, with somebody to help me lift these rocks." He paused, and decided some levity might do his brother good. "Don't go anywhere."

"Don't bother," replied the voice from under the stones. "Leave me here. If you're lucky the Dragon Queen might save you to burn some other day."

It is this that assures Tyrion that Jaime is still himself, somewhere beneath the ruins of the Red Keep. Jaime had always put the safety of those he loved before his own.

_If he's still doing that, he can't be gone. Not yet._

Tyrion walks a bit faster. He needs to find Ser Davos Seaworth.

**A/N: And there is the first chapter, in all its shambling mediocrity. Leave a review if you like, tell me how to improve and all. Thanks for reading, and the next update will hopefully be soon.**


	2. Chapter 2

**I know, I know, this took a lot longer than it should have. It's finals time at school, so cut me some slack. The next one of these should be out much faster.**

**So, without further ado:**

Chapter 2

Morro is a burly man, large and well-muscled from a lifetime of lifting crates filled to the brim with goods - both legitimate and smuggled. Darmon is even larger; twenty years of pulling an oar on a trading galley tend to have that effect on a man. Both worked with Davos Seaworth once, before he gave up his smuggling career. Now both of them work for Tyrion Lannister, and have been paid handsomely for their service and their silence. After all, it would not do for the wrong people to find about their new lines of work.

Tyrion is there when they pull the last of the rocks off of his brother. He is there when they manage to extract him from the rubble. He is there to look him in the eyes.

Once they had been emeralds, flashing defiantly at any who dared look the Kingslayer in the face. Those emeralds looked to have been tarnished, scratched, robbed of their light. At first Jaime says nothing. He simply stares at his brother with those horrible, broken eyes. Tyrion stares back, unable to look away. The brothers stay that way for a few heavy moments. Jaime speaks first.

"You should have left me there. Left me to die."

Tyrion's heart breaks for what must have been the thousandth time that day. His brother had truly wanted to die - and Tyrion honestly could not blame him. His sister, his lover, the mother of his children had been crushed by her own castle in front of his eyes, and he had been forced to finish her off. Tyrion has always dealt with horror one way: fucking whores and drinking wine, usually some combination of the two. His brother could probably use a good drink, but now is perhaps not the time.

"I would never leave you to die, Jaime. You're my brother. You're the only family I have left. I never bet against my family." Jaime laughs, a horrible sound full of anger, regret, bitterness.

"It would have been kinder to let me die, brother. Cersei is dead. My children are dead. King's Landing is ash. My life is over." Jaime shakes his head, gazing at the floor upon which he was sprawled; his legs appear to be broken, although his upper body seems to be intact due to the doorway to the tunnel shielding him.

Tyrion reaches into his cloak and removes a small raven scroll, hastily scribbled upon in the hand of a woman Jaime knows all too well. He extends it to Jaime. His older brother, once a gallant knight, just stares at the scrap of parchment like it's an unappetizing slice of cheese.

"Do you know what this is?" Tyrion asks him. "Do you know what it says?"

Jaime sighs from his position on the floor, unable to stand due to the injuries he sustained in the collapse of the Red Keep. "Read it to me," he says. "I don't feel like reading at the moment."

Tyrion supposes that he cannot begrudge him that. He unfurls the scroll, clears his throat, and begins to read.

"It is from Brienne of Tarth."

Jaime recoils as if he had been struck with a mace; if he had been standing he would likely have fallen to his knees.

"Don't read the rest, I don't - " Tyrion cuts his brother off. _He needs to hear this,_ he thinks. _He needs to know why he cannot die yet. _

"It is not yet certain," he reads, "but Maester Samwell believes I may be with child. Tyrion, you know whose it is. Since it is likely that your brother will not return to me, all I ask is that you, as Lord of Casterly Rock, provide for my child. He, for I feel it will be a boy, will be of Lannister blood, and I will never be able to give him the childhood he deserves." Tyrion lowers the scroll, and looks at his brother. Jaime is silent, contemplative. After a moment something seems to resolve itself within him, and he looks up at his diminutive brother.

"I'll go," he says, a determination in his eyes that had been absent when he first emerged from the rubble. "I'll go to Winterfell, find Brienne. If she wants to see me again."

Tyrion thinks he can detect a hint of _fear_ in his brother's voice. If somebody had told him a few years ago that the legendary Jaime Lannister was _afraid_ of a woman rejecting him, Tyrion would probably have found himself immobile on the floor, unable to move or speak because he would have been laughing himself to an early grave.

"She will. She loved you, fool that you are, and she won't have stopped loving you. Her heart is far too big and far too kind for that." Tyrion thinks for a moment. "That isn't our worry right now, though. If you want to get to Winterfell, we need to get you out of King's Landing first. The Unsullied are guarding all the exits, and I doubt there are any ships left unburnt." He pauses, suddenly reminded of his own escape from the capital. He had hidden in a box, on a ship. Of course, there were no ships leaving or entering the city now that most of the city was in ruins. Plenty of people were leaving though, refugees who had somehow survived and watched everything they once held dear burned to ash. What few belongings they had were piled onto ramshackle carts, pulled by whatever animals were available, or simply by men. An idea hits him square in the face, and Tyrion finds himself wondering how he did not see this before. "Morro," he says, "go get your cart and horse, and have it waiting outside at the hour of the wolf." He briefly glances at a patch of sky visible through one of the many holes in the fallen keep. "That shouldn't be too long now, so be quick about it."

"At once my lord," rumbles Morro. He rumbles off to retrieve his cart. Tyrion turns to the other man he had brought with him to dig Jaime out, Darmon.

"I need you to find as many sacks, rags, and other such things to cover my brother with. We'll hide him in the cart and smuggle him out of the city; the Unsullied haven't been ordered to search all the wagons leaving the city. The Dothraki will likely still be busy looting. With any luck," Tyrion says, offering a mischievous grin to his brother that is tentatively reciprocated, "you'll be out of the city and headed north without the Queen so much as being aware you're alive."

Jaime thinks for a moment, then nods. "Have Cersei's body sent to the Rock." Tyrion looks down in surprise, only to be met with the most desperately somber expression he had ever seen besmirching Jaime's normally handsome face. "She would have wanted to be buried there, I think." He's putting on a brave face, Tyrion knows, but a slight tremble in his brother's voice gives the game away.

"I'll see it done," Tyrion promises solemnly. "For your sake."

Jaime is blinking away tears. "Thank you." He gives himself a moment to regain his composure. "Do try to keep the Dragon Queen from burning any more cities, won't you? Or, better yet," he grabs his brother and pulls him closer, "just have the bitch killed before she can inflict any more pain."

Tyrion frowns. "I'll do what I can, she …" he searches for the words to use. "... doesn't listen to me anymore. Or anyone else for that matter."

Jaime just looks at his diminutive brother for a moment. "Before I get shipped off back to Winterfell, there's a story you need to hear."

Tyrion sits himself down next to Jaime, and motions for him to carry on. Jaime stays silent for a moment, seemingly gathering his thoughts.

"I never told you why I killed the Mad King."

Tyrion stills for a moment before he scrambles to speak. "Jaime, now isn't the time -" Jaime keeps going, undeterred.

"As you know, Aerys loved fire, wildfire especially. He'd burn those who displeased him in front of the court, make a spectacle of it. He used to cackle with joy as they screamed. He started burning more and more people the more paranoid he got. By the time our Lord Father was knocking on the very gates of the Red Keep, the man was truly an animal. He was bleeding all over the throne, his many scabs oozing blood and other fluids onto the floor." Jaime pauses to collect himself, and Tyrion interjects.

"Jaime, you don't have to tell me this. I'm sure it's difficult for you to relive those days." His voice is laden with concern and sympathy. Jaime just shakes his head.

"You have to hear this, brother." The urgency in his eyes is so intense that Tyrion swiftly clamps his mouth shut, and listens. Jaime continues his tale, a bit more sure of himself now. "Prior to the Siege of King's Landing, he had ordered caches of wildfire buried all over the city. There was wildfire under Fleabottom, the Street of Steel, and even the Red Keep itself, I believe. Even then, I tried to convince Aerys to see reason. When Father laid siege to King's Landing I asked permission to treat with him, to see if some arrangement could be made. I was ordered to bring Aerys my own father's head, to prove my loyalty." Jaime's voice is shaking; from anger or simply remembered trauma, Tyrion knows not.

"With that order came a message. The King was in the throne room, with his pet pyromancers. I might be the most foolish of the Lannisters, but even I knew what that meant. 'Burn them all,' he kept screaming, 'Burn them all.'" Looking at his brother, it seems to Tyrion that, in Jaime's mind, he is back in that throne room, with the madman and his servants. _Seven hells, he probably gets sent back there every time he dreams._

"I killed the pyromancer first. Aerys tried to run, but he was an old man and I was a young knight, just entering my prime. I ran him through with my sword, then cut the fool's throat for good measure." Tyrion continues to simply sit, spellbound by the story his brother was telling.

"Oathbreaker, they call me now. Kingslayer, Man Without Honor, the list goes on. I saved thousands of lives, and they call me a monster." Jaime grabs Tyrion's shoulders, a desperate urgency radiating from him. "When the time comes, you might find yourself in my position." Tyrion can do nothing but meet his older brother's gaze. "Do what needs to be done. _Fuck _your oaths, Tyrion. Do what is _right_."

Tyrion opens his mouth to respond, but it is at this precise moment that Morro reappears, and informs him that the cart is prepared, and that Darmon is waiting with it. They will smuggle Jaime out of the keep in the dead of night; most of the Dragon Queen's forces are still distracted by the elation of victory, it would seem.

As he watches the cart rumble away, Tyrion sees two large, grizzled, generally unpleasant-looking commoners and a pile of shoddy-looking goods in the back. The eyes of a witless Unsullied or crazed Dothraki warrior would not notice the odd shape of the pile. They would not stop the cart and search it. They would not recapture Jaime Lannister.

At least, that is what he tells himself. Either way, he reasons, this is likely the last time both brothers will see each other. With that cheerful thought on his mind, he turns and wanders into the city.

He has a Queen to counsel.

**A/N: So that's that. The next chapter will likely focus on Jaime and his journey through the war-shattered Crownlands and Riverlands towards the North. As always, leave a review if you so desire, and tell me what I can improve upon or just share your thoughts. Thanks for reading, and the next chapter will probably be finished more quickly than this one was, as I stated earlier.**


	3. Chapter 3

**I AM SO SORRY about how late this was, I have been having difficulties with electricity. Here it is, and the next installment should be out sometime next week.**

Chapter 3

The Riverlands have seen many things over the course of the War of Five Kings, and the wars that came after. Two men, a cart, and a third man in the back were comparatively quite mundane. It comes as no surprise to Jaime, then, that his party has not attracted much attention. He wouldn't complain, of course; he knows full well the fate that awaits him should their little cart be intercepted by Targaryen forces. Despite this, he has abandoned the ruse of lying beneath a pile of junk, he now sits up in the back of the cart openly. Hiding under a few bags of slightly moldy potatoes is acceptable for a few hours to fool any Targaryen soldiers. It is not, however, a suitable condition in which to spend a lengthy journey.

_There are certain advantages to traveling as an invalid like this, _he thinks to himself. _It's rather relaxing. Boring, even._

Boring is a good way to describe the experience so far, he decides. Jaime Lannister once rode through these lands in flashing gold armor on a beautiful white stallion at the head of an army, all cloaked in crimson. He once commanded legions of men as they charged into battle. The thrill of a fight, the sensation of running a man through, the exhilaration of victory, the devastation of defeat. All of it had once accompanied his previous exploits in the Riverlands.

_All of it would be preferable to this damned inaction._

He won't be crippled forever, he knows. Darmon, the ex-oarsman, had apparently picked up some skill in healing along his path in life. Jaime had been rather surprised at this, but willing enough to accept his help. Darmon has fashioned splints for Jaime's broken legs; in time, perhaps even before they reach Winterfell, he will once again be able to walk and ride. Until then, however, he is imprisoned in the back of the cart.

It is putting him on edge. He knows they will die if the Dragon Queen's patrols catch up with them. True, Darmon and Morro are both very large and rather threatening men; Morro has a very nasty-looking cudgel, studded with iron, that Jaime would hate to be on the recieving end of. Darmon is also armed; he carries a large knife with a wicked curve to its blade that appears to be well-used. He also has a cutlass strapped to his belt, which Jaime assumes is a holdover from his time at sea. Despite all this, none of them are in any doubt that if the Dothraki riders overtake them, they will all die. And yet, they cannot move quickly; a cart, even when pulled by a strong horse, will never be able to outrun a lightly armored man on horseback.

Jaime isn't the only one that realizes this. Morro has been looking over his shoulder at the road back to King's Landing since they exited the city. Every time he does so, he looks more and more apprehensive.

"Won't be long 'fore those fuckers ride up on us." Morro curses, and spits. "An' when they do, we're dead men. All of us."

Darmon nods silently. For all his apparent knowledge, he doesn't talk much. Luckily, Jaime is not and never has been known as a man to stop talking for very long, so he picks up the slack.

"You're right. We'll be dead before long, especially if we stay on the Kingsroad." Jaime's voice is fraught with resignation. Despite his little brother's best efforts, Jaime doubts he will make it to Winterfell, to Brienne, to his unborn child.

"Aye." Darmon finally speaks up, if only to voice his assent.

"What's your idea then?" Morro turns in his seat to look at Jaime, sprawled in the back of the cart. "We go on any of the smaller side roads, bandits'll gut us and rob us before you can blink."

Jaime nods, absentmindedly. He's heard this conversation before; in the days since the party left King's Landing they must have had this argument at least ten times. Each led to the same conclusion: they were doomed.

With this gladdening idea hovering in his mind, Jaime just stares at the sky above him, periodically interrupted by the branches and leaves of the trees lining the Kingsroad. It is beautiful today, blue and unblemished. The sky is probably the only beautiful thing left unspoiled in the Riverlands, truth be told. The villages are mostly knocked to pieces. A sizeable portion of the smallfolk also seem to be knocked to pieces. Headless corpses, hanging corpses, and corpses simply lying dismembered on the ground are all a common sight. The fields are largely barren, fallow.

Jaime is not surprised by any of this; any land subjected to years of Lannisters, Starks, Tullys and Baratheons trampling about, fighting and pillaging and burning, would end up like this eventually. No, the carnage does not unnerve him.

The silence does.

There are no birds chirping in the trees, no small creatures rummaging in the leaves. There are no children laughing in the villages they cross through, even the mostly unburnt ones. There are no fellow travelers singing, joking, or talking. There is only silence, except for the odd sentence exchanged between the three travelers. The deafening lack of sound seems to choke these lands like a deep fog.

The silence makes the rumbling of hooves in the distance all the more ominous. They all know what it means. Jaime does not even bother covering himself with the sacks again; it is not a trick that is likely to work more than once.

The Dothraki riders overtake them in a section of road that is surrounded by particularly dense forest. It would be the ideal spot for an ambush, were Jaime planning to defeat the Dothraki with his own army, but he has no such force at his disposal.

The apparent leader of this force, a rather cruel-looking Dothraki man with very thick eyebrows and very dark hair, rides forward towards Jaime, Darmon and Morro as his compatriots maneuver their horses into a circle around the cart. Jaime counts fifteen horsemen, not including the leader.

_Even with two working hands and two working legs, I doubt I could take this many. _

Jaime has always been a stubborn man, but he knows when he's been beaten. He is unsure how much Tyrion actually paid Morro and Darmon, but apparently it was not enough to make Morro want to actually fight fifteen Dothraki screamers. He drops his cudgel with a dull thud, and raises his hands as the leader of the riders approaches. Darmon has both his knife and his sword out, and his eyes are shifting between the various foes around them. His body, however, remains tense and still. Jaime pushes himself up into a sitting position.

_I won't die lying on my back, at least._

The Dothraki leader dismounts about five feet from the cart. Darmon, still holding his weapons, stands a bit to the side of the wooden vehicle, with his back to it. It is a clever position, Jaime knows, as it prevents any of the savages from getting behind the hired ex-sailor, but Darmon will not be able to win any fight that breaks out here. Not alone.

Morro, for his part, walks towards the Dothraki with his arms outstretched, to show that they are empty. He begins to speak. "I'm not paid nearly enough to die today, so just let me pass and you can have the Kingsl-" He is cut off - literally - by a the sound of a blade being swung through the air at a deadly speed, followed shortly by a scream and the sound of a head hitting the ground.

The Dothraki captain kicks Morro's now decapitated corpse to the side as he approaches Jaime and Darmon, his arakh still dripping with the blood from Morro's neck. "I am Losho," states he says, in a somewhat halting, but still decent rendition of the Common Tongue. "The Khaleesi has sentenced you, Kingslayer, to die." He hefts his bloody arakh and points it at Jaime. Darmon shifts on his feet, but remains silent.

Jaime meets Losho's eyes, and emerald green clashes with deep, bloodthirsty brown. "Get on with it then. Death comes for all of us in the end; why make it wait now?" Jaime Lannister has never feared death, and this situation is not different. Nonetheless, his good hand finds the hilt of a sword hidden beneath the various detritus in the cart. Tyrion had somehow managed to get it from the guards who had captured him as he tried to sneak into King's Landing. Of course, it will be difficult to hit Losho with it since Jaime cannot walk at the moment, but perhaps, if he comes close enough ...

_Widow's Wail, terrible name really. If by some miracle I live long enough I'll have to get a new name for it._

Losho nods, seemingly in agreement, but Darmon blocks his path to Jaime. Losho chuckles, derisively. "Do you, too wish to die?"

Darmon says nothing, but he spits at the feet of the Dothraki man. Jaime finds himself wondering how much bloody gold he was promised by Tyrion; most common men would turn down a castle and a knighthood if it meant they didn't have to take on a bloodrider.

Losho laughs, twirling his arakh in a slow, deadly arc. "I like you. You do not gibber, like this one did." He nudges Morro's corpse with the toe of his boot. He then turns to the rest of his riders. "Do not interfere; this man deserves a good fight before he meets his end." With that, he lifts his arakh and sprints towards Darmon. At the last second, Darmon ducks the blow, stepping deftly beneath the blade and around the back of Losho. He aims a slash with his cutlass at the Dothraki warrior's now exposed back, but it is deftly parried as Losho turns around to face Darmon again. "You move well, for a man of Westeros," notes Losho, his grin wider now; the man is clearly enthralled by the bloodlust that Jaime knows sings sweeter than anything else..

Some people would likely call Losho a maniac, a bloodthirsty madman. Jaime, however, cannot; it would be hypocritical of him. The same joy that he sees in Losho once flowed through his own veins, back when he had two hands and no compunctions. Killing, in that earlier Jaime's mind, was the sweetest thing in life, but only if a good fight came first. Losho seemed to concur.

Darmon is trickier to read. Even as he pushes Losho back with a flurry of quick slashes from his cutlass and dagger, his expression is totally composed; no emotion is outwardly betrayed. It brings to Jaime's mind the late member of the Kingsguard, Ser Mandon Moore. He had always been a deadly fighter, in Jaime's eyes, precisely because his face gave nothing away. Darmon, clearly, is similarly dangerous.

Despite this, as the two combatants exchange blows it seems to Jaime they are evenly matched. Losho swings his mighy arakh, Darmon evades it, Darmon throws a cut with his cutlass, Losho bats it aside with his own blade, and the fight carries on in this fashion.

Then Darmon changes the rules.

He steps back after narrowly avoiding a swipe from Losho's arakh, twirls the curved knife he has been holding in his left hand, and throws it at the Dothraki fighter's torso. Losho deflects it with his arakh, triumph twinkling in his eyes, but tt does not remain there for long. Darmon uses the split second of time that Losho takes to block the thrown knife to close the distance and throw a swift cut across Losho's legs. The Dothraki captain hisses in pain, and desperately swipes his blade at Darmon even as he staggers. Darmon blocks the frantic swing almost casually, and plants his sword in Losho's chest with a single solid strike of his own. He walks to where his knife had fallen and picks it up as Losho's corpse joins Morro's on the bloody ground.

Jaime grins, despite himself. He and Darmon are, he reasons, both still dead men, but at least there was a decent enough fight before it had to happen.

The Dothraki riders that had surrounded them are still for a moment, as they stare at their leader's body. Clearly he was held in high regard; they appear truly shocked at his sudden demise. One of the riders, a young man with a patchy beard and a large scar down the center of his nose, recovers more quickly than the others. He spins his arakh, wheels his mount around, and charges directly at Darmon, all the while screaming unintelligible war cries. Darmon quickly readies himself, raising his own blade, but the eerie battle scream is cut off by a soft _thump_ and a wet, gurgling sound clawing its way from the rider's throat. He collapses off his horse with a red-feathered arrow protruding from his neck.

It is then that the chaos of all seven hells truly descends on that quiet stretch of forest road.

**And that's it for this chapter folks. I hope you enjoyed it. I'd like to take a brief moment to thank everyone who has reviewed this story, or simply followed it. The support means a lot to me and I appreciate it. That being said, please tell me what your thoughts were on this chapter! I am not great at writing fight scenes so if you had any suggestions please let me know. They will be put to good use since next time we will have another, larger fight ;)**

**For those who were wondering this story will now primarily focus on Jaime, but there will be at least one more Tyrion chapter as well.**


	4. Chapter 4

As the remaining Dothraki process what had just happened, more arrows hiss through the air and find new homes in the chests and heads of the riders. Horses scream, men shout, and total pandemonium erupts. Darmon takes the opportunity to hurl his knife into the heart of the nearest horseman, and then slices open the mount of another with his sword.

Jaime cranes his neck around as far as he can from his sedentary position in the cart, searching the trees on both sides of the road for the source of the arrows. As his eyes took in the forest, he sees shadows moving between the trees. _Soldiers._ The shadows grow larger, getting closer, until they burst into the light of the sun. Men rush from the forest onto the road, begin to brutally hack the disorganized Dothraki to pieces. Jaime watches one gaunt soldier gore a Dothraki horse with a spear, pull the screaming rider from his mount as it dies, and repeatedly thrust a thin dagger into the man's throat.

The new combatants are pale, and some appear ill-fed, as though they have not eaten a hearty meal in quite some time. They are wearing Lannister uniforms, though the armor of a few of them is coated in a layer of ash and dust.

_Deserters from King's Landing, perhaps?_

Jaime does not recognize any of the men, but seeing as there's a battle on he supposes that is not overly surprising.

It isn't long before the Dothraki have been slaughtered almost to a man; they are fierce warriors but when surrounded and outnumbered in a space where they cannot use their great speed, their lack of armor is a crippling disadvantage. The last remaining rider takes a look around at his fallen compatriots and wheels his horse around to flee.

The apparent leader of these soldiers, a vaguely familiar-looking knight with shoulder-length copper hair and deep shadows beneath his eyes, sees the escaping Dothraki and shouts, "Boras, bring him down!"

A man in similar Lannister livery to the other steps out of the forest, an unusually large longbow firmly grasped in his hand and a quiver of arrows hanging by his side. He looses an arrow at the now distant rider and confidently walks away. Jaime watches in awe as, in the distance, the fleeing rider topples from his mount with an arrow in his back.

_That man, _Jaime decides, _may be the best archer I have ever seen. I've met perhaps three men that could make a shot like that, in all seven Kingdoms. _

Looking about, the battle appears to have been more of a massacre than a real fight; none of the red-cloaked men lie dead upon the ground like the Dothraki do, although one appears to have sustained a cut on the arm. Jaime pulls himself into a more upright position as the copper-haired knight walks over to the cart, with Darmon following close behind. He still keeps his hand on Widow's Wail's hilt, though; the intentions of these men might be counter to those of the Dothraki but they still might attempt to hold him for ransom or some other such trickery.

"Lord Jaime." The knight speaks first, with a tone of bewilderment coloring his voice. "I had thought you to be dead, old friend."

Jaime is shocked beyond words for a moment; he and Addam Marbrand had grown up together, but he had thought the man to have perished with the rest of the Lannister army. "Well, Ser Addam, I had some unfinished business here in the world of the living and the Seven Hells are rather crowded these days, so here I am." After a brief pause, the two old friends embrace (albeit rather awkwardly, seeing as Jaime cannot stand). "How did you survive King's Landing, my friend?"

Ser Addam looks at him, confusion apparent on his drawn and weary face. "I wasn't there. The Queen appointed me to lead the Lannister garrison in the Riverlands once you left to head North, and we've been harassing the Targaryen forces ever since. What happened to your legs?"

Jaime sighs, shaking his head. "I was … foolish." Regret pools in his voice like poison, eating away at his soul. "The Red Keep fell on me. I'm lucky to be alive, and in time I should walk again." A heavy pause hangs in the air for a moment before Jaime finds the resolve to continue. "I'm now headed to Winterfell to collect the woman I love and my child." He stares, almost defiantly, at Ser Addam, who to his credit shows no surprise if he feels any. One of his favorite things about Addam Marbrand has always been that the man knows when not to ask questions.

"Very well, my Lord." This is simple courtesy as Jaime is, in name at least, the rightful Lord of the Rock and heir to House Lannister. Addam's next words, however, are admittedly surprising. "Come to our camp, my Lord, and we shall escort you there. Capable as this fellow," Addam gestures at Darmon, "may be, these are dangerous times, and the Lord of the Rock should travel with his army."

Jaime is touched by the loyalty of his old friend and his army, but he cannot help but feel that it is unwarranted; it has been a while since he's done anything to deserve such respect. At present he wears no armor, but the guilt that cloaks him is heavier than even his father's grand set of plate mail ever was. "I'm a man with two broken legs and one hand, Addam, I'm in no fit shape to - "

His friend interjects, an almost desperate tone colouring his voice. "You're our rightful Lord, Jaime. These men," he points at the red cloaks around them, dragging the dead Dothraki off of the road, "and their compatriots back at the camp have nothing else to fight for. You're the last lion this world has left in it."

Jaime decides not to mention Tyrion; it is likely that his little brother is a sore subject with the Lannister loyalists at the moment. Addam is still talking. "You're all they have left, all your House has left. They need you just as much as you need them."

A pregnant silence comes after the Lannister bannerman's impassioned speech. For a moment Jaime almost feels his father's eyes on him, though he knows they shut long ago. Tywin Lannister was not often proud of his children, Jaime knows, but Jaime also knows he never lost the desire to change that fact.

"I'll do it." He grins, a genuine one, somehow. His friend smiles too, and orders his men to get the cart going in the right direction. It seems, Jaime reflects, that when he arrives at Winterfell it will be with an army at his back. _Strange times indeed._

**Alright, alright. It was late and probably rather bad, I know. But it's here, which is good at least. I lost motivation to keep writing for a while and I hope it doesn't show. Please, review with any feedback you might have, and I'll have the next installment out ... at some point :p.**


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